This Mathematics unit helps students describe the features and make models of 3D objects.
Three-dimensional objects are all around us! They surround us so much, in fact, that as adults we barely notice their existence! But it wasn’t always that way… at some point in the past, our teachers used a 3D object unit plan to teach us exactly what these fun objects were. And now it’s our job to do the same for our students.
Comparing 2D and 3D shapes on a poster can help students learn the concepts behind 3D objects, but we thought you might be after something a little more exciting. That’s why we’ve created thiscurriculum-aligned, gamified maths unit to blow your students’ minds and help them to remember 3D objects forever.
It consists of 4 lessons of approximately 60-minutes duration.
The sequence of lessons and suggested time frames should be regarded as a guide only; teachers should pace lessons in accordance with the individual learning needs of their class.
An assessment task for monitoring student understanding of the unit objectives is included and will require an additional lesson.
Shape Seekers 3D Object Unit Plan
The Shape Seekers Unit is an interactive, story-driven set of lessons where students help Professor Dede test an invention called “The Dimensionator.” This mysterious device, left to him by his grandmother, can turn 2D shapes into 3D objects!
Access Students’ Prior Knowledge
The story, activities and questions for this unit are all contained in the Shape Seekers PowerPoint. It is broken into easy-to-navigate chapters. This PowerPoint is full of engaging animations to help students visualise the transformation process from 2D shape to 3D object.
The fun intro to this unit plan asks kids to access their prior knowledge of shapes and geometry. See what your students remember about 2D shapes and find out about their prior knowledge of 3D objects with a fun video. Then, scaffold this knowledge together with a comparison activity! Oh, and let’s not forget those hands-on objects. After all, you need to bring them in so that the machine can be calibrated!
Wrap up this part of the unit with some thought-provoking questions:
- Out of the 3D objects types that were brought from home, which was the most common?
- What are the main three features of a 3D object?
- Are there any shortcuts you can use when determining the number of faces, corners or edges?
Learn to Classify Prisms
Help Professor Dede to operate his machine by answering questions about how many faces, vertices and edges particular 3D objects have.
Then, introduce the most fun hands-on activity ever! Provide your students with the Draw a Town with 2D Shapes resource. The best part is, this fun activity will be continued over the course of the unit. Each lesson presents your students with a set of clues to solve that lead to something mysterious!
Get the Low Down on Pyramids and other 3D Objects
This awesome unit presents information to students in a fun, gamified way! Reward students with additional clues each time an object is created.
Learn how to translate numerous 2D shapes into 3D objects, starting with a simple square.
Then, once your students have mastered simple prisms and pyramids, they can move on to more unique 3D objects such as spheres, cylinders and dodecahedrons!
Don’t Forget the 3D Objects Assessment!
It’s time to get hands-on with some model making! In this fun assessment, students will demonstrate their 3D model-making abilities, as well as their understanding of the features of 3D shapes.
The Assessment – 3D Object Profiles requires a bit of forethought, so make sure you read through it and gather all the necessary construction materials for your students beforehand.
As we said, this unit is perfect for differentiation!
As the Year 2 content descriptions from the Australian Curriculum don’t reference making models, there is an easy way to differentiate this assessment piece down.
Simply provide students with the 3D object picture cards from the Let’s Sort It! – 2D Shapes and 3D Objects Sorting Activity. Then, encourage your class to choose three objects and stick the pictures on the template page. To finish, they can describe the details of each object.
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This powerpoint is awesome and my students want another one. We loved the interactive nature of it and my students still think the scans were real :-) They found it really engaging and it was fun. However, it wasn't easy to follow as when I downloaded it, I had to hunt for all the resources and I didn't know what printables I needed as we went through the powerpoint. It wasn't intuitive to use and we found it a bit frustrating at times. It is a shame that the shapes are not created using standard nets rather than origami, so that students can make the link to 3d shapes and nets. The origami instructions were not easy to follow and we ended up using a trial and error method. Also it would be good if all the lesson plans & resources came with the powerpoint or if the powerpoint gave some teachers instructions. Perhaps everything could be a zip file download.
Hi Leanne, Thank you so much for taking the time to post such valuable feedback! So glad that your students enjoyed the PowerPoint and were able to help Professor Dede with The Dimensionator! We are in the process of creating a video that shows how to make the origami box. Be on the lookout for that soon. We will take all your suggestions into consideration for future resources. If you wish for changes to be made to a current resource, feel free to submit a change request by using the 'Changes & Updates' tab on the resource's page. Thanks again! Tom
My kids loved the power point But I am so confused on how the town features go together and stick on the map? The origami instructions are very confusing for year 2’s. Is there a picture of the finished product that we can see?
Hi Kate, Thank you for getting in touch with us today. I am so glad your students enjoyed the Shape Seekers PowerPoint. I have added a digital diagram of the assembled Town Features positioned on the Town Map to the lesson plan and the resource post. https://www.teachstarter.com/au/teaching-resource/draw-a-town-with-2d-shapes/ The origami instructions can be supplemented with video instructions by doing a quick web search for 'origami masu box'. Please get in touch if we can help with anything else!